Railway dispute: Talks set to continue as disruption cloud hangs over rail services

Talks aimed at averting strikes by thousands of railway workers are to continue with the threat of disruption still hovering over the industry. Leaders of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union met yesterday with Network Rail bosses under the chairmanship of the conciliation service Acas and more discussions are scheduled in the weeks ahead to try to resolve a row over new rosters for signal workers, while discussions over plans to cut maintenance jobs will be held next Wednesday.

The union claimed the number of jobs under threat because of cuts had now topped 5,000.

General secretary of the RMT Bob Crow said: "The 50bn of cuts facing our public services isn't some far-off target months or years down the track.

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"The 4bn that is being slashed from Network Rail's (NR) budget has now placed over 5,000 maintenance and renewals jobs in the firing line.

"There is not a shred of doubt that axing these posts will represent a lethal gamble with rail safety."

NR denied it was putting safety at risk. Chief executive Iain Coucher warned that, without an assurance that workers will be available at weekends and at night, NR would probably have to reduce the amount of investment work allocated to maintenance and rely on contractors.

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